This invention relates to the field of environmental control, and provides a device which removes particulates or other materials from a gas stream. In particular, the present invention comprises a wet gas scrubber in which water is the preferred medium for removing contaminants from air.
Environmental concerns have prompted the development of many devices for removing contaminants from the air. Such devices are used in industry, such as in cleaning air streams before they are released to the outside through a smoke stack. They are used in commercial settings, such as in cleaning air that is exhausted from apartment buildings or office buildings. And they are also found in smaller scale applications, such as in cleaning the air in small businesses or homes.
It has long been known to remove particulates from air by contacting the air with water, and allowing the water to capture and retain the particulates. In effect, water acts as a filtration medium. Such devices are commonly known as wet scrubbers, wet dust collectors, or gas scrubbers. Examples of wet scrubbers of the prior art are given in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,525,309, 3,673,769, 3,700,216, 3,957,466, 4,105,723, 5,641,338, and 6,076,813, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein. The present invention falls into the general category of wet scrubbers.
A major disadvantage of wet gas scrubbers is that they generally require a pump to circulate water through the system. Thus, energy must be expended both on moving the gas to be cleaned through the system, and on circulating the water used as the filtration medium. Some of the scrubbers of the prior art manage to eliminate the need for a pump, but they instead substitute relatively complex structures that are costly to build, and offset the savings achieved by elimination of a pump.
The present invention provides a scrubber that does not require a pump, and which also requires little complex structure, thereby substantially boosting the efficiency of the scrubbing operation, as compared with devices of the prior art. The scrubber of the present invention is especially suited for use as a dust collector, in filtering flammable metals such as aluminum, titanium, and magnesium. It is also well suited for filtering any gas stream containing burning particulates, salts, sugars, any contaminants soluble in water, and many chemical gases such as hydrochloric acid, formaldehyde, and odor-causing gases evolved from plastics. However, the invention is not limited to use in these fields.